Post by Tallaith on Jan 10, 2011 13:05:01 GMT -5
I originally wrote this guide for my Kinship a few years ago and felt that it needed a bit of updating. After role-playing in this game for four years, I've noticed tons of different RP styles. I've met very, very talented and very, very tedious players.
I'm by no means an expert and I don't want to tell anyone how to play their character or how to enjoy the game. However, I hope I can offer a few tips to help you grow as a RPer!
THE BASICS
Role-play is like perfoming before an audience. If you're not a good perfomer, no one wants to watch you. If you mumble your lines, babble the first thing that comes to mind, or don't make sense at all, you'll be booed off the stage.
Some folks aren't great with spelling and grammar. They may not speak English as their native language or are brushing up on their writing skills via RP. I take this with a grain of salt, since sometimes I'm a rather... ambitious speller, myself. It's quite different, however, when I can't tell what someone is trying to say at all.
Take your time. Scroll back and read what you just wrote before you post it. Don't feel pressured to say something fast just to fill in a gap in conversation, as most folks are willing to wait for what you have to say. If you can't even come close to spelling a word, pick another one!
Another matter is what tense to RP in. Present tense, as in "I am sitting on my couch" is usually the accepted form for RP. Past tense, future tense, and present tense all mixed up together can be very difficult to follow. If I see something like, "Ms. Elf wandered to the bar, batting her eyelashes as she would order a drink," I can't bring myself to RP with that person. The more appropriate way to state this would be, "Ms. Elf wanders to the bar, batting her eyelashes as she orders a drink." This is a matter of taste, not just for me but for the RP community in general.
CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT
Characters, like real people, should be allowed to grow and change over time. If they're played in one static way for the entire duration of their "lives," they become stale for you and others. The gaming environment and game-play mechanics, your friends, and the server community are constantly changing. In real life, events like war, expanding horizons for exploration, and new technologies and discoveries change the way you view the world. To add depth to a character and to give them their own life, consider allowing these changes to shape who they are as well.
When you develop your character, even if you start out with only a bare-bones "sketch," keep flexibility and room for growth in mind. A character may be stubborn as stone, but if a game mechanics update suddenly adds an entirely new skill set to his combat abilities, would he ignore his new skills and remain unchanged? Or would he subtly change, and possibly develop his personality, to accept the new aspects of his class functions?
This brings me to address something that I have seen over and over again. Not everyone plays their character to reflect their character's level or class and that's fine. Unless a player reveals their chosen path in-character to you, don't assume that a Hunter has a passion for crossbows or that a Burglar is really out to pick-pocket someone. Class does not always reflect who the character REALLY is, nor does the level of the toon reflect how strong, well-traveled, experienced, or wise they are. Names and numbers floating over the heads of the characters you meet are best left ignored, plain and simple.
This should be pretty obvious, but nobody's perfect. Not in reality, not in-character. When I meet a character who has no flaws, I walk away. Conversely, no one is perfectly evil. Again, I walk away from Snidely Whiplash-types who want to do nothing more than tie maidens to... well, there aren't railroad tracks in Middle Earth but you get the idea. When you start fleshing out your character, think about the good AND bad, the light AND dark, that's in everyone.
BIOGRAPHIES
A biography is a great way to share details and the history of your character with others. You have a tab on your character panel to write a short biography; other players, especially when they see you are flagged for RP, like to inspect you and check out what you have to say about yourself. Biographies are viewed by other players in many different ways, so be thoughtful about how you present yours to the world.
There are folks who write their character's entire history in their bio tab. There's nothing wrong with this if you'd like to share that much information with the general population in a limited amount of space. However, some players will read your biography and decide that even though they've never met your character, they know everything about them through some strange sort of psychic super-power. It's also a sign that you're hanging out with a beginning RPer when they call you by your name or make comments about the facts in your biography just because this information is visibly available.
After a lot of trial and error, I've bounced back and forth from having no biography, to having a short summary of my character's life, to posting only a brief physical description. I found a happy medium that worked for me. This is what my character bio tab says:
~ Wanna see a trick? ~
Random mischief is always welcome!
Tallaith's not more than seventeen or eighteen years old and she's just tall enough to be unremarkable.
She's adept at blending in with commoners' surroundings and is clearly not a noble lady or skilled warrior, changing her hair color often to make it difficult to determine her lineage.
There's a small scar on her chin, faded with age. She struggles to keep her hair and clothes neat with mixed success.
Tallaith wears a delicate cloak pin made of silver and pewter vines twined around a shining shard of gemstone. It's clear she's a person of rank with a Kinship, though the badge does not state what this standing may be.
Find RP outside of Bree! /joinchannel glrp to meet folks OOC.
londtreneri.proboards.com/index.cgi
This works for me because there's a description of her appearance that hints at parts of her personality, an invitation to meet new friends and talk to me about a chat channel, and a link for more information about my Kinship. I try to keep it short and simple, suggesting that there may be more to learn about my character through IC interaction.
Try out different options and see what makes you happy. If you're comfortable with a personal history or physical description, then go for it! Or you can try a hybrid approach and see what kinds of results you have.
IMPROVING YOUR CHARACTER'S INTERACTIONS
Every RPer has to start somewhere. The difference between newbie RPers and the more skilled ones (I like to call RPers of the highest quality and skill "storytellers") is in how they present their character to others and in their interactions.
There are many guides on RPing in a context like an MMO. One of the big "no-nos" I've read in these guides is emoting what your character is experiencing internally, as in thoughts, visions, or other happenings that wouldn't be visible in reality. I see this as a grey area. I approach externalizing what my character feels and thinks in a tongue-in-cheek fashion. For instance, my hobbit burglar's ego is easily ten times the size of her body. I love emoting, in a playful way, what she's thinking.
For instance:
/casts an imperial glance around the inn's common room. She approaches the barkeep and sets down a single copper as if she's bestowing upon him the wealth of a kingdom; she straightens her ridiculously fancy hat and forces herself to sip the glum ale. She appears to believe she is clearly and most exceptionally the cleverest person in the inn as she looks around at all of the other dullards gathered there.
This bends the "no-no" but in a fashion that leaves everything to the perception of the others around me. Using phrases like "as if," "she assumes," and other open-ended statements allows people to either accept or ignore what I'm trying to portray. I state nothing in a concrete, undeniable fashion. Her thoughts and attitudes are created more as an OOC comment than as an IC statement or action to demonstrate what type of person she is.
However, I run into this quite often:
Ms. Elf thinks the man who bought her ale is very handsome and would make a great baby-daddy for a litter of kids.
There's no way to take this emote as anything other than what it is: a blunt, undeniable statement of what this character is thinking. Apparently she's thinking it so hard she's forcing everyone around her to access their latent psychic abilities to understand her!
If you decide to externalize otherwise internal feelings and thoughts, keep in mind some RPers aren't skilled enough to recognize these posts for what they are. I used to RP with an incredible storyteller, one of the best I've met, who posted things her characters were doing that the other players would see and appreciate OOCly but that the characters she interacted with IC wouldn't notice. This was a really cool way to indicate exactly the sort of person she was playing without going overboard with her descriptive terms. It was very, very subtle and well-done.
For instance, when she plays a bad-guy, shady sort:
Mr. Sneaky nods in pleasant greeting to his lady friend. He watches her turn to fill her cup, his smile turning momentarily into an icy smirk of calculation. His expression thaws to a welcoming smile as soon as she turns back to face him.
There are so many ways to improve your interactions with other folks that are simple to do and increase the quality and versatility of your RP exponentially. The best way to demonstrate some of these easy improvements is by providing an example of an actual meeting I had with a friendly, if inexperienced, RPer:
Mr. Captain says, 'I admire your desire Lady, but my experience has taught me else. Vengeance can wait, when you need time to heal and take the time, your duties will follow through more steadily and easily in the end.'
Ms. Elf feels a bit odd, as a vision pops in her head. She see's a town set afire. Her face is shocked as the vision goes away. She looks to Cay ((the character I was playing, who I had not introduced yet)) quickly.
Cay arches a brow at the Lady. "Are you hurting? Are you well?"
Ms. Elf shakes her head, "I just had a vision..." she says almost unable to speak
Cay steps back a bit, her eyes huge. "Of what, Lady?"
Ms. Elf bites her lower lip, "A town...It was set afire. I could feel the heat, I could hear the cries of people." she says. Ms. Elf widens her eyes as she puts her hand on her head as the vision comes back. Orcs and the bodies of men and women. She blinks as the vision goes away, not to return. "Trestlybridge." she mumbles
Typos aside, because I have my days too where I'm thrilled ANYBODY can read what I'm saying, there are a few issues with the way this RPer approaches interactions. What I didn't post is my initial greeting with her.
We said hi, I invited her to sit with my character, and she proceeded to tell me her entire life story about thirty seconds after meeting me. Say you meet a stranger in line ahead of you at the grocery store and she immediately begins your budding friendship by documenting her memories of her first bath and continues all the way through her visit to her auntie yesterday. The teller is likely weighing the crazy lady's bananas and resising the urge to call the authorities. You're probably going to think she's a bit nuts.
It's more believable and makes your character more mysterious, realistic, and intriguing to delay "putting it all out there" right away! Unless you're in a court-ordered support group, you probably aren't going to blurt out your entire life story to total strangers immediately upon meeting them in reality. Conversely, don't assume when you meet a character for the first time that they're shallow or amateur because they don't instantly tell you their maternal grandfather's name and their childhood dog's favorite place to play catch. Better quality RPers have the ability to add realism to their characters by delaying sharing their histories, building trust (or distrust), and relationships with others while slowly revealing who they are.
RP MANNERS, METAGAMING, AND GOD-MODDING
There are a few basic rules of thumb when interacting with others IC. I hope if you're reading this, you're already familiar with the basic concepts of good manners and the general boundaries of RP; this is an in-depth exploration of the finer etiquette of pretending you're someone you're not.
"Posting," which I mentioned above, is a commonly used term in RP. If you let folks know you're posting, as in, (("One second, long post here...")) or (("Oooo! Lemme jump in with my post here?!")) you're letting them know to be patient and give you a few moments to say what you need to.
As an aside note, notice the little brackets I used there? That's a fairly common way of making an out-of-character statement to those around you. Some people use different symbols, but they all mean to "press pause" for a moment for some OOC chat. If the conversation becomes lengthy or might bother others, it's considerate to take it to a channel besides /emote or /say.
If you're a narrative-style RPer and you tend to take a long time speaking or emoting, you may want to send a polite /tell to new friends explaining that you need a few moments but you're worth the time. It can be incredibly frustrating when I make a new friend, we start chatting, and ten minutes go by where I wonder if I lost connection, she lost connection, she's decorating a birthday cake with a comprehensive map of Indonesia made of royal icing, or she's watching sitcoms and RPing during the commercials, only to be surprised with a really, really, long and intense post out of nowhere, just as I've reached the point of despair. A simple tell, such as, ((I'm still here, I'm a bit of a slow typer, sorry...)) is a nice way to ask folks to be patient if you take a while to post.
God-modding, also called metagaming, is a tricky subject. In short, godmodding is performing an action with your character upon another character (or NPC if this can effect the other player characters around you) WITHOUT PERMISSION, creating actions on the behalf of uninvolved characters, NPCs, or imagined participants WITHOUT PERMISSION, or posting actions on behalf of the others around you WITHOUT PERMISSION. Do you see the theme here?
Godmodding is the most obnoxious quality I can think of in RPers. For instance, Ms. Elf decides it's time to exact revenge on Snotty Dwarf, who's been talking trash about her behind her back. Unfortunately for you, you're Snotty Dwarf's player and Ms. Elf has no concept of asking permission or using manners.
Ms. Elf walks up to you while you are in the middle of bringing a plot line you've been incubating for months to fruition. She barges in and emotes that she's using her Mallet of Smiting to smash Snotty Dwarf's left shoulder into a fine paste. Considering Snotty Dwarf was in the process of finalizing travel plans that involve a dozen other players, this injury is a bit inconvenient.
Ms. Elf also makes it a habit to bring along calvalry in the form of otherwise placid, peace-loving hippie-type NPCs. Without waiting for Snotty Dwarf's reaction, Ms. Elf whistles to the nearby seamstress NPC, who is harmlessly mending shirts at her outdoor stall, and calls in her skills as a ninja-assassin/tailor of fine silken stockings. Suddenly, Snotty Dwarf is faced with two enemies he has no hope of winning against!
The point of this example is simple. Don't be a jerk like Ms. Elf. If you want to perform ANY sort of action against another player or players in your post, ask permission first OOC. Even actions like hugs can be unwelcome depending on the character and your relationship with them.
There's a nifty system that's easy to use for in-character combat and helps resolve the issue of godmodding in this context. Join a fellowship with the person you're fighting and use the /roll command, which works almost like rolling dice in a RPG. You can set the rules on what high rolls mean, low rolls, whose turn it is, etc before you start whomping on each other. This keeps things fair, even if you've previously determined who's going to win the fight. This is also useful to add a bit of chance and uncertainty to your RP and keeps you on your toes when you're faced with many other tricky decisions involving others.
Be polite. Don't mod and be a jerk.
ADDING REALISM AND DEPTH WITHOUT BEING A KNOW-IT-ALL
Your character has been around a while. You've watched him grow from a shy, clumsy youth to an esteemed, mighty champion of good and all things honorable. He's even got his eye on a certain someone he'd like to settle down and farm some taters with, if you get my meaning. A busy soldier definitely stays hungry!
Other people like your character. He's a nice guy, good-looking, athletic, and handy to have on your team weilding a seven-foot-long axe in battle. The only problem is that he's so perfect he's just... creepy. He's always got the right thing to say in even the awkwardest situations, he finds time to brush his teeth AND floss at least three times a day, even while on the front lines of war, and he loves both his mama and baby kittens with an unparalleled devotion.
This level of complete and total zen perfection can get old. Fast. Both for the player behind Mister Perfect and for the folks that have to deal with him.
There's nothing more challenging and interesting than finding out what shapes someone's life. No one in reality is flawless; some people are more resilient than others and their life's blemishes promote growth, other people let circumstances turn into a canker that warps them for all time.
To add more depth and realism to your character, even if they already have established personalities, consider giving them a quirk or flaw. This is also a great way to help develop a new character, especially if you're a beginning RPer. Think about what small blemish would add dimension to their lives; for instance, I gave Ms. Sunshine a dark family history. This story began to grow and include other players, along with shaping who she is and why she makes the choices she does. She's always been a socially-handicapped spaz, which seems to endear her to a lot of people, but a deeper flaw made her a better quality character.
Adding realism and atmosphere is also a ridiculously easy way to make yourself look like either a total expert and super-genius or a completely incurable geek. Approach this with caution, however, if you aren't willing to put in some time and work. You can still look uber using easy nerd-cheats, but keep in mind there ARE bigger dorks out there than you who can call your bluff.
For instance, to add a bit of realism to my Rohirrim lassses, I use a few simple terms from their native language in conversation. I only use a vocabulary of half a dozen words and phrases that I know well; greetings and farewells, basic titles, exclamations, etc. If someone responds with her language and I don't understand what the heck they just babbled at me, I have the grace to send them an OOC tell and explain that I'm not that well-versed. Otherwise, I let myself appear to be a complete lore-dork.
However, so I don't look like a pretentious jerk, I try to ICly explain what I just said. For example:
/says, "Brem holca, friend. Oh, I am sorry... Most folks say that as 'ride well.' It was a pleasure to meet you."
Phew! I think that's all I have energy for at the moment, but I add on to this little article as time permits (averaging every two years, apparently). Some of these techniques are already well-known, but I hope I provided a couple of hints and tricks that you may find useful. Take some time to explore the world in this game. Listen to NPCs chat, enjoy the scenery, and find new inspiration, stories, and friendships.
Good luck!
I'm by no means an expert and I don't want to tell anyone how to play their character or how to enjoy the game. However, I hope I can offer a few tips to help you grow as a RPer!
THE BASICS
Role-play is like perfoming before an audience. If you're not a good perfomer, no one wants to watch you. If you mumble your lines, babble the first thing that comes to mind, or don't make sense at all, you'll be booed off the stage.
Some folks aren't great with spelling and grammar. They may not speak English as their native language or are brushing up on their writing skills via RP. I take this with a grain of salt, since sometimes I'm a rather... ambitious speller, myself. It's quite different, however, when I can't tell what someone is trying to say at all.
Take your time. Scroll back and read what you just wrote before you post it. Don't feel pressured to say something fast just to fill in a gap in conversation, as most folks are willing to wait for what you have to say. If you can't even come close to spelling a word, pick another one!
Another matter is what tense to RP in. Present tense, as in "I am sitting on my couch" is usually the accepted form for RP. Past tense, future tense, and present tense all mixed up together can be very difficult to follow. If I see something like, "Ms. Elf wandered to the bar, batting her eyelashes as she would order a drink," I can't bring myself to RP with that person. The more appropriate way to state this would be, "Ms. Elf wanders to the bar, batting her eyelashes as she orders a drink." This is a matter of taste, not just for me but for the RP community in general.
CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT
Characters, like real people, should be allowed to grow and change over time. If they're played in one static way for the entire duration of their "lives," they become stale for you and others. The gaming environment and game-play mechanics, your friends, and the server community are constantly changing. In real life, events like war, expanding horizons for exploration, and new technologies and discoveries change the way you view the world. To add depth to a character and to give them their own life, consider allowing these changes to shape who they are as well.
When you develop your character, even if you start out with only a bare-bones "sketch," keep flexibility and room for growth in mind. A character may be stubborn as stone, but if a game mechanics update suddenly adds an entirely new skill set to his combat abilities, would he ignore his new skills and remain unchanged? Or would he subtly change, and possibly develop his personality, to accept the new aspects of his class functions?
This brings me to address something that I have seen over and over again. Not everyone plays their character to reflect their character's level or class and that's fine. Unless a player reveals their chosen path in-character to you, don't assume that a Hunter has a passion for crossbows or that a Burglar is really out to pick-pocket someone. Class does not always reflect who the character REALLY is, nor does the level of the toon reflect how strong, well-traveled, experienced, or wise they are. Names and numbers floating over the heads of the characters you meet are best left ignored, plain and simple.
This should be pretty obvious, but nobody's perfect. Not in reality, not in-character. When I meet a character who has no flaws, I walk away. Conversely, no one is perfectly evil. Again, I walk away from Snidely Whiplash-types who want to do nothing more than tie maidens to... well, there aren't railroad tracks in Middle Earth but you get the idea. When you start fleshing out your character, think about the good AND bad, the light AND dark, that's in everyone.
BIOGRAPHIES
A biography is a great way to share details and the history of your character with others. You have a tab on your character panel to write a short biography; other players, especially when they see you are flagged for RP, like to inspect you and check out what you have to say about yourself. Biographies are viewed by other players in many different ways, so be thoughtful about how you present yours to the world.
There are folks who write their character's entire history in their bio tab. There's nothing wrong with this if you'd like to share that much information with the general population in a limited amount of space. However, some players will read your biography and decide that even though they've never met your character, they know everything about them through some strange sort of psychic super-power. It's also a sign that you're hanging out with a beginning RPer when they call you by your name or make comments about the facts in your biography just because this information is visibly available.
After a lot of trial and error, I've bounced back and forth from having no biography, to having a short summary of my character's life, to posting only a brief physical description. I found a happy medium that worked for me. This is what my character bio tab says:
~ Wanna see a trick? ~
Random mischief is always welcome!
Tallaith's not more than seventeen or eighteen years old and she's just tall enough to be unremarkable.
She's adept at blending in with commoners' surroundings and is clearly not a noble lady or skilled warrior, changing her hair color often to make it difficult to determine her lineage.
There's a small scar on her chin, faded with age. She struggles to keep her hair and clothes neat with mixed success.
Tallaith wears a delicate cloak pin made of silver and pewter vines twined around a shining shard of gemstone. It's clear she's a person of rank with a Kinship, though the badge does not state what this standing may be.
Find RP outside of Bree! /joinchannel glrp to meet folks OOC.
londtreneri.proboards.com/index.cgi
This works for me because there's a description of her appearance that hints at parts of her personality, an invitation to meet new friends and talk to me about a chat channel, and a link for more information about my Kinship. I try to keep it short and simple, suggesting that there may be more to learn about my character through IC interaction.
Try out different options and see what makes you happy. If you're comfortable with a personal history or physical description, then go for it! Or you can try a hybrid approach and see what kinds of results you have.
IMPROVING YOUR CHARACTER'S INTERACTIONS
Every RPer has to start somewhere. The difference between newbie RPers and the more skilled ones (I like to call RPers of the highest quality and skill "storytellers") is in how they present their character to others and in their interactions.
There are many guides on RPing in a context like an MMO. One of the big "no-nos" I've read in these guides is emoting what your character is experiencing internally, as in thoughts, visions, or other happenings that wouldn't be visible in reality. I see this as a grey area. I approach externalizing what my character feels and thinks in a tongue-in-cheek fashion. For instance, my hobbit burglar's ego is easily ten times the size of her body. I love emoting, in a playful way, what she's thinking.
For instance:
/casts an imperial glance around the inn's common room. She approaches the barkeep and sets down a single copper as if she's bestowing upon him the wealth of a kingdom; she straightens her ridiculously fancy hat and forces herself to sip the glum ale. She appears to believe she is clearly and most exceptionally the cleverest person in the inn as she looks around at all of the other dullards gathered there.
This bends the "no-no" but in a fashion that leaves everything to the perception of the others around me. Using phrases like "as if," "she assumes," and other open-ended statements allows people to either accept or ignore what I'm trying to portray. I state nothing in a concrete, undeniable fashion. Her thoughts and attitudes are created more as an OOC comment than as an IC statement or action to demonstrate what type of person she is.
However, I run into this quite often:
Ms. Elf thinks the man who bought her ale is very handsome and would make a great baby-daddy for a litter of kids.
There's no way to take this emote as anything other than what it is: a blunt, undeniable statement of what this character is thinking. Apparently she's thinking it so hard she's forcing everyone around her to access their latent psychic abilities to understand her!
If you decide to externalize otherwise internal feelings and thoughts, keep in mind some RPers aren't skilled enough to recognize these posts for what they are. I used to RP with an incredible storyteller, one of the best I've met, who posted things her characters were doing that the other players would see and appreciate OOCly but that the characters she interacted with IC wouldn't notice. This was a really cool way to indicate exactly the sort of person she was playing without going overboard with her descriptive terms. It was very, very subtle and well-done.
For instance, when she plays a bad-guy, shady sort:
Mr. Sneaky nods in pleasant greeting to his lady friend. He watches her turn to fill her cup, his smile turning momentarily into an icy smirk of calculation. His expression thaws to a welcoming smile as soon as she turns back to face him.
There are so many ways to improve your interactions with other folks that are simple to do and increase the quality and versatility of your RP exponentially. The best way to demonstrate some of these easy improvements is by providing an example of an actual meeting I had with a friendly, if inexperienced, RPer:
Mr. Captain says, 'I admire your desire Lady, but my experience has taught me else. Vengeance can wait, when you need time to heal and take the time, your duties will follow through more steadily and easily in the end.'
Ms. Elf feels a bit odd, as a vision pops in her head. She see's a town set afire. Her face is shocked as the vision goes away. She looks to Cay ((the character I was playing, who I had not introduced yet)) quickly.
Cay arches a brow at the Lady. "Are you hurting? Are you well?"
Ms. Elf shakes her head, "I just had a vision..." she says almost unable to speak
Cay steps back a bit, her eyes huge. "Of what, Lady?"
Ms. Elf bites her lower lip, "A town...It was set afire. I could feel the heat, I could hear the cries of people." she says. Ms. Elf widens her eyes as she puts her hand on her head as the vision comes back. Orcs and the bodies of men and women. She blinks as the vision goes away, not to return. "Trestlybridge." she mumbles
Typos aside, because I have my days too where I'm thrilled ANYBODY can read what I'm saying, there are a few issues with the way this RPer approaches interactions. What I didn't post is my initial greeting with her.
We said hi, I invited her to sit with my character, and she proceeded to tell me her entire life story about thirty seconds after meeting me. Say you meet a stranger in line ahead of you at the grocery store and she immediately begins your budding friendship by documenting her memories of her first bath and continues all the way through her visit to her auntie yesterday. The teller is likely weighing the crazy lady's bananas and resising the urge to call the authorities. You're probably going to think she's a bit nuts.
It's more believable and makes your character more mysterious, realistic, and intriguing to delay "putting it all out there" right away! Unless you're in a court-ordered support group, you probably aren't going to blurt out your entire life story to total strangers immediately upon meeting them in reality. Conversely, don't assume when you meet a character for the first time that they're shallow or amateur because they don't instantly tell you their maternal grandfather's name and their childhood dog's favorite place to play catch. Better quality RPers have the ability to add realism to their characters by delaying sharing their histories, building trust (or distrust), and relationships with others while slowly revealing who they are.
RP MANNERS, METAGAMING, AND GOD-MODDING
There are a few basic rules of thumb when interacting with others IC. I hope if you're reading this, you're already familiar with the basic concepts of good manners and the general boundaries of RP; this is an in-depth exploration of the finer etiquette of pretending you're someone you're not.
"Posting," which I mentioned above, is a commonly used term in RP. If you let folks know you're posting, as in, (("One second, long post here...")) or (("Oooo! Lemme jump in with my post here?!")) you're letting them know to be patient and give you a few moments to say what you need to.
As an aside note, notice the little brackets I used there? That's a fairly common way of making an out-of-character statement to those around you. Some people use different symbols, but they all mean to "press pause" for a moment for some OOC chat. If the conversation becomes lengthy or might bother others, it's considerate to take it to a channel besides /emote or /say.
If you're a narrative-style RPer and you tend to take a long time speaking or emoting, you may want to send a polite /tell to new friends explaining that you need a few moments but you're worth the time. It can be incredibly frustrating when I make a new friend, we start chatting, and ten minutes go by where I wonder if I lost connection, she lost connection, she's decorating a birthday cake with a comprehensive map of Indonesia made of royal icing, or she's watching sitcoms and RPing during the commercials, only to be surprised with a really, really, long and intense post out of nowhere, just as I've reached the point of despair. A simple tell, such as, ((I'm still here, I'm a bit of a slow typer, sorry...)) is a nice way to ask folks to be patient if you take a while to post.
God-modding, also called metagaming, is a tricky subject. In short, godmodding is performing an action with your character upon another character (or NPC if this can effect the other player characters around you) WITHOUT PERMISSION, creating actions on the behalf of uninvolved characters, NPCs, or imagined participants WITHOUT PERMISSION, or posting actions on behalf of the others around you WITHOUT PERMISSION. Do you see the theme here?
Godmodding is the most obnoxious quality I can think of in RPers. For instance, Ms. Elf decides it's time to exact revenge on Snotty Dwarf, who's been talking trash about her behind her back. Unfortunately for you, you're Snotty Dwarf's player and Ms. Elf has no concept of asking permission or using manners.
Ms. Elf walks up to you while you are in the middle of bringing a plot line you've been incubating for months to fruition. She barges in and emotes that she's using her Mallet of Smiting to smash Snotty Dwarf's left shoulder into a fine paste. Considering Snotty Dwarf was in the process of finalizing travel plans that involve a dozen other players, this injury is a bit inconvenient.
Ms. Elf also makes it a habit to bring along calvalry in the form of otherwise placid, peace-loving hippie-type NPCs. Without waiting for Snotty Dwarf's reaction, Ms. Elf whistles to the nearby seamstress NPC, who is harmlessly mending shirts at her outdoor stall, and calls in her skills as a ninja-assassin/tailor of fine silken stockings. Suddenly, Snotty Dwarf is faced with two enemies he has no hope of winning against!
The point of this example is simple. Don't be a jerk like Ms. Elf. If you want to perform ANY sort of action against another player or players in your post, ask permission first OOC. Even actions like hugs can be unwelcome depending on the character and your relationship with them.
There's a nifty system that's easy to use for in-character combat and helps resolve the issue of godmodding in this context. Join a fellowship with the person you're fighting and use the /roll command, which works almost like rolling dice in a RPG. You can set the rules on what high rolls mean, low rolls, whose turn it is, etc before you start whomping on each other. This keeps things fair, even if you've previously determined who's going to win the fight. This is also useful to add a bit of chance and uncertainty to your RP and keeps you on your toes when you're faced with many other tricky decisions involving others.
Be polite. Don't mod and be a jerk.
ADDING REALISM AND DEPTH WITHOUT BEING A KNOW-IT-ALL
Your character has been around a while. You've watched him grow from a shy, clumsy youth to an esteemed, mighty champion of good and all things honorable. He's even got his eye on a certain someone he'd like to settle down and farm some taters with, if you get my meaning. A busy soldier definitely stays hungry!
Other people like your character. He's a nice guy, good-looking, athletic, and handy to have on your team weilding a seven-foot-long axe in battle. The only problem is that he's so perfect he's just... creepy. He's always got the right thing to say in even the awkwardest situations, he finds time to brush his teeth AND floss at least three times a day, even while on the front lines of war, and he loves both his mama and baby kittens with an unparalleled devotion.
This level of complete and total zen perfection can get old. Fast. Both for the player behind Mister Perfect and for the folks that have to deal with him.
There's nothing more challenging and interesting than finding out what shapes someone's life. No one in reality is flawless; some people are more resilient than others and their life's blemishes promote growth, other people let circumstances turn into a canker that warps them for all time.
To add more depth and realism to your character, even if they already have established personalities, consider giving them a quirk or flaw. This is also a great way to help develop a new character, especially if you're a beginning RPer. Think about what small blemish would add dimension to their lives; for instance, I gave Ms. Sunshine a dark family history. This story began to grow and include other players, along with shaping who she is and why she makes the choices she does. She's always been a socially-handicapped spaz, which seems to endear her to a lot of people, but a deeper flaw made her a better quality character.
Adding realism and atmosphere is also a ridiculously easy way to make yourself look like either a total expert and super-genius or a completely incurable geek. Approach this with caution, however, if you aren't willing to put in some time and work. You can still look uber using easy nerd-cheats, but keep in mind there ARE bigger dorks out there than you who can call your bluff.
For instance, to add a bit of realism to my Rohirrim lassses, I use a few simple terms from their native language in conversation. I only use a vocabulary of half a dozen words and phrases that I know well; greetings and farewells, basic titles, exclamations, etc. If someone responds with her language and I don't understand what the heck they just babbled at me, I have the grace to send them an OOC tell and explain that I'm not that well-versed. Otherwise, I let myself appear to be a complete lore-dork.
However, so I don't look like a pretentious jerk, I try to ICly explain what I just said. For example:
/says, "Brem holca, friend. Oh, I am sorry... Most folks say that as 'ride well.' It was a pleasure to meet you."
Phew! I think that's all I have energy for at the moment, but I add on to this little article as time permits (averaging every two years, apparently). Some of these techniques are already well-known, but I hope I provided a couple of hints and tricks that you may find useful. Take some time to explore the world in this game. Listen to NPCs chat, enjoy the scenery, and find new inspiration, stories, and friendships.
Good luck!